Family Time

Visiting with family is one of my favorite things! 

Who wouldn't love this sweet face?

Oh, what a look!

Taken by Eli

Also taken by Eli

*Not* sharing with cousins

Loving on babies

"Fishing" at the park

He loves helping!

Super bright day, but he loved, loved, loved the trains at the Jenks herb festival. He really wanted to hold them!

Sad because he can't touch the trains!

This was the best self-control I've ever seen from him! NOT touching the train inches from his fingers!

Web City Park

Everyone has fun at the park!

She sure loves her daddy!

Why are rocks so fun? To stand on, climb, jump off...

... and throw in the water!

Even now, weeks later, Eli sees these pictures and talks about throwing rocks!

Believe it or not, this is not the same rock as before...

I think he was asleep half way back on the five-minute drive from the park to the house.

Why I Like Travel Nursing

Have you ever been in a situation so deep and/or long that you couldn't see how completely it took over you life? 

That sounds bad, but it can also be a good thing.

For me, my job in Wichita, as much as I really love what I do, drained me. And I didn't even know it.

Everyday I would come home exhausted after working 13-14 hours and driving 30-40 minutes each way. It would take me 1-2 days just to recover from work, and then I would work again. Because of this cycle, I always felt tired... and I thought there was something wrong with me. 

The unit I worked on was so busy, we rarely had lunch breaks. We would just run through, shove something in our mouth, and run back out. Since starting travel nursing, I haven't missed a lunch break one. single. day. And I think I've only been at work longer that 12.5 hours a few times. These things make a huge difference!

When I get home, I can see Eli and help put him to bed. Before, on days I worked, I didn't get to see Eli at all that day. I left before he woke up and always came home after his bedtime. If I worked several days in a row (as I did every week), I wouldn't see him for two or three days. My baby. 

I see Eli every day now, and I get to talk to him and he tells me about his day. It just makes my whole day better!

Along with all this, it is less stressful at work too. I don't have any 'extra' responsibilities that I would have if I worked permanently at the hospital, and people have fewer expectations of me. I can always (honestly) say, "oh, I'm a traveler, I don't know where that is,"  and I'm not expected to always know the answer. It's also less stressful because never once have I had more patients than I felt I could take of well. 

On my days off, I get to spend time with Eli and Josh, and we are more intentional about seeing the city we are in and enjoying our time together. 

This whole thing has almost been a vacation!

Downtown Mesa

We are settled into our new apartment in Oklahoma, but we have spent much of the last week seeing family and friends... and Eli caught a pretty bad cold in the middle of everything. Because of him being sick, we didn't get to see my Grandparents last Saturday, but we were able to drive up and see my parents on Sunday and Josh's mom on Monday. Rachel and Scout and Rhuey were able to meet us in Tulsa on Monday, so we spent the day with them too! 

Unfortunately, I'm horrible at remembering to take pictures when we visit family... I need to work on that. But I managed to snap a few while with Gram and Gramps.

Gramps reading a truck book to Eli.
At the bottom of the picture is an old cash register that I played with;
that was the toy Eli spent the most time playing with while we were there.

Playing on the iPad with Gramps (Eli would push his hand away if he tried to 'help')

Playing with Gram

He did more than just play on the iPad the whole time, I promise, but that's just the only time he would hold still! Even though he wasn't feeling quite himself, he was still busy, busy. 

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Catching up on some pictures from Arizona! These are from an afternoon walking around downtown Mesa. Soon, I'll try to get the Easter pictures up!

Downtown has statues on almost every block... Eli found most of them interesting. The first one, he went up to the boy reading a book and looked at him, then looked at the book, trying to figure out what he was looking at!

This book doesn't have pictures!

He laughed at the pig one, but he refused to touch it!

Resting with Daddy.

There were also a few fountains and water features, this one was his favorite because he could touch it and play in it!

The water ran into the grate on the ground... "where'd it go?"

We told him not to put rocks in the water, so instead he picked the rocks out of the bottom of the pool and dropped them back in. I guess it would have been better to remove the rocks altogether, but at least it was better than putting in more rocks. :)

After our downtown walk, we went for a treat at In-N-Out. Eli and I 'shared' a strawberry shake. Meaning, I took a few sips, then let him take a sip... and I never got it back.

This is his don't-even-think-about-taking-my-ice-cream-away face.

These last pictures are from the little water park we went to a few times. There is also a video of him running around in the water, but it was too large to put on the blog, so you can head over to Facebook and check it out! 

Not too sure about it at first...

As warm as the day was, the water was pretty chilly.

At first, he would run in, feel the water, turn around and run out!

Then he became more brave!

Stomping the water coming out!